Whether you are launching a brand spanking new company or trying to reach a new audience for your existing one, it’s likely you’re thinking about how social media plays a part in your marketing mix. The social channels you need to be on are a total no-brainer, right? — My restaurant should share beautifully styled food photos on Instagram; my salon needs to have a YouTube channel, because beauty vloggers are a big deal. Maybe not. The right channel for your brand may seem like an obvious choice, and your gut may be pointing you in the right direction, but you need to do a little legwork to make sure.

It’s no secret that we, as a society, are overwhelmed by content. The sheer amount of information and data coming at us is incredible. The sixth edition of Domo’s “Data Never Sleeps” study reports over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every single day, and that by 2020, it’s estimated that 1.7MB of data will be created every second for every person on earth.

“If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.” – John Steinbeck

For a story to resonate, it has to resonate on a deeply personal level. It needs to feel familiar, relatable, like it was written (orchestrated, filmed, illustrated – we know that stories are so much more than words) for you. Steinbeck went on to write that the stories that stand the test of time were about everyone – deeply personal and familiar.

I was recently invited to give a presentation to my local Entrepreneurs group here in Biddeford, Maine on how small business can best use Instagram. To gauge where I needed to spend the most time during my talk (and which bits I could zoom through), I asked the crowd how many people were using Instagram to promote their business. Only about a third of the audience raised their hand, correlating pretty closely to those who raised their hand when asked who used in for their personal social networking.

For small business owners, every new social platform you add can feel overwhelming – one more thing added to the never-ending to-do list. It’s often easier to stick with what you know instead of diving into something new. But before you decide what platforms you need and which ones you can ignore for now, it’s important to have an understanding of what each platform is, how it works, and how you might be able to use it to reach your business marketing and brand goals.